


I'll Remember You

by Darke_Eco_Freak



Category: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, RIPeters, Spoilers for movie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 15:25:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18346415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darke_Eco_Freak/pseuds/Darke_Eco_Freak
Summary: Two women who loved a Peter Parker and lost a Peter Parker.





	I'll Remember You

Gwen thinks about Peter a lot, more than she should maybe. He’s the ghost in the back of her head, the boy with the bright ideas and the bright eyes that she loved so much. He was her best friend, Spider-Woman’s very first accomplice, and her very first casualty.

Peter Benedict Parker was everything she wanted to protect in New York, he’s the reason she’s still doing this, even though the city hates her. She’s gotta keep his memory alive, and she’s gotta protect the place they both loved so much. She’s gotta do it for Peter.

“Hey Gwen, heads up!”

She bats the ball away instinctively, slapping it harder than she should maybe but it doesn’t hit anyone. Just bounces off the far away gym wall and slams into the bleachers hard enough to make the metal ring.

She remembers sitting on those bleachers with Peter. They’d sneak away between classes to sit and talk science or talk Spiders and Lizards. He was so smart, so so smart. He could’ve gotten any one of the internships their school’s pushing everyone into now. He could’ve worked for Oscorp or Stark or even Richards, he was good enough for all of em. And Peter was ambitious enough to try juggling all three if he got the chance. 

Instead, that’s her. Instead that’s her sitting on the gym floor with applications spread out around her because the library’s getting a new paint job and there’s nowhere else. She can’t do this at home, her dad would get all huffy about her really deciding on science instead of something worthwhile. Why science Gwendolyn? Do you really think they’ll look at you twice? Women in STEM never get the recognition they deserve, you’ll only be wasting your time.

She knows that, she knows all about discrimination in STEM, she knows she’s going up against all the snotty rich boys with their daddy’s contacts. She knows she’s going up against all the pretty rich girls with their nice faces and mommy’s old college friends. She’s just the daughter of the police chief, she’s not rich, she’s not pretty, she doesn’t have the network, but she can try.

Peter would’ve wanted her to try, he would’ve been sitting right here with her, filling out all these stupid applications and making jokes about it too. Oscorp wanted interns with initiative who were good at taking orders? What oxymoron came up with that one?

Gwen snorts as she fills in another line, Peter would’ve loved this. He would’ve pushed her to apply to all the same places as him, i.e. all of them. He would’ve supported her, he would’ve, would’ve, would’ve…

“Gwen!”

She punches the ball, punches the shit out of it, without looking up, without looking away from her applications. There’s a second of “ _Oops_ ” then the ball slams against the wall, plaster and paint explode out in a tiny puff and someone screams.

Gwen doesn’t look back to see who, she’s scrambling to her feet, shoving everything in her bag, and running out of the gym before anyone can call her back. There’s a hole in the gym wall for the rest of the month and no one dares say who did it.

* * *

Mary Jane is used to attention, she’s had it since she was a little girl and her red hair was redder. She’s had it since she was a teen when she started getting curves and filling out her training bras and everyone started looking longer. She’s had since she was a college girl, a wild, crazy college girl at the hottest parties in the hottest dresses.

Mary Jane is a model, she’s used to the paparazzi flashing their cameras and waving their mics. She’s used to questions getting shouted at her across the street and she’s used to getting jeered at by people she doesn’t know. She’s a gorgeous gal in the big apple, what does she expect?

Mary Jane is a wife… _was_ a wife. She was a wife with a loving husband who was larger than life. She had a husband that threw himself off skyscrapers to keep other people’s wives safe, to make sure their husbands came home at night. She had a husband that fought monsters and wrestled with aliens and knew so many people Mary Jane could barely keep track of them.

She had a husband she loved so much, who was smart and sweet and kind and so brave it broke her heart. She had a Peter Parker, for nine whole years she had a Peter Parker, and now she wonders if nine years will help her live through all the rest without him.

Because Peter’s dead, _Spider-Man’s_ dead, and she’s left behind to deal with the fallout. She has to explain to all the reporters that she didn't know what her husband did, she thought it was all long nights at the lab and tripping up stairs and getting clipped by bike messengers. She has to lie to every nice policeman that comes by and tell them of course she never helped Peter commit all those acts of vigilantism, never _knowingly_ officer. She has to sit in the middle of their kitchen, surrounded by boxes of Peter's things, crying over his shirt because _damn it_ still smells like him!

She’s left to clear her throat and choke down her tears when Wilson Fisk calls her, personally calls her, and pretends to care so much about Spider-Man, about her Peter. She has to fake a smile and make nice like she doesn't know this man killed her Peter. Like Peter never told her who Fisk was and what he did and all the blood on his hands. Like her Peter wouldn’t tell her where he was going before he ran off to save the day again.

Fisk reaches out out to her in the middle of her grief, in the middle of her screaming and crying and beating her hands against the kitchen tile, over and over and over until they're numb and bruised. He invites her to a charity dinner in Peter's honour because he wants her there, it wouldn't be the same without her there. And Mary Jane? Mary Jane wants him dead. 

She wants to see him broken open and bleeding out and just as torn apart as her Peter was. She wants to wrap her numb, trembling hands around his pudgy throat and squeeze until his face goes as blue as Peter's. She wants to wedge her fingers into his heart and rip it apart so he'll feel just a piece of what she's feeling now. 

So she accepts the invitation. A man like Fisk only knows how to play games with people so Mary Jane'll play to win. If he thinks she's just some ditzy dame, then fine, she'll act the part. If he thinks for a second she won't tell May Parker or that May hasn't told her about all the other Spiders that Peter's last mission brought here, then fine. If he thinks she doesn't know what he has built underneath his gaudy building, what he's trying to do, then alright. 

Mary Jane will put on a nice dress, she'll do her face up pretty and cover her bruised hands with make-up. She'll put on a show and she'll pretend to be every bit the lovely, grieving but so naive widow everyone wants to think she is. The police can't arrest her for aiding and abetting if they don't have any proof she did. Fisk can't treat her like the wife of a man he hated because he's playing nice and Mary Jane can't break his jaw because she's playing smart. 

And if she calls the police the second those other Spider's disappear, then no one has to know that. If she sneaks into Fisk's office after he's gone and key in the passcode to leave the elevator open May gave her, then that's her business. If she bumps into Officer Davis on her way out, screaming about Fisk heading to his office and oh god what if he's still in there, then that's just a coincidence. 

 

Mary Jane is pretty, she’s a model. Mary Jane was a wife, and she had a husband, and that’s all there was to her. A pretty face, a famous name, and a heroic husband, nothing else. She wasn’t an accomplice, she wasn’t an actress so good that she could fool the Kingpin of crime. She wasn’t a woman looking for revenge.

A woman with a heart bleeding red, red, Spider-Man red.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time writing for Spiderverse so tell me how it was and come hmu on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Darke_Eco_Freak) if you wanna talk Spiders


End file.
